Washington University Jurisprudence Review Volume 11 | Issue 1 2019 Political Speech in the Armed Forces: Shouting Fire in a Crowded Cyberspace Elliott uH ghes Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_jurisprudence Part of the First Amendment Commons, Jurisprudence Commons, Law and Society Commons, Legal History Commons, Legal Theory Commons, Military, War, and Peace Commons, and the Rule of Law Commons Recommended Citation Elliott uH ghes, Political Speech in the Armed Forces: Shouting Fire in a Crowded Cyberspace, 11 Wash. U. Jur. Rev. 139 (2019). Available at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_jurisprudence/vol11/iss1/9 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington University Jurisprudence Review by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. POLITICAL SPEECH IN THE ARMED FORCES: SHOUTING FIRE IN A CROWDED CYBERSPACE? ELLIOTT HUGHES* “Your voices: for your voices I have fought; Watch’d for your voices; for your voices bear Of wounds two dozen odd; battles thrice six I have seen, and heard of; for your voices have Done many things, some less, some more: your voices: Indeed, I would be consul.”1 Caius Martius Coriolanus ABSTRACT A staple of the American version of democracy is civilian control of the military: we are uncomfortable with politicization of the Armed Forces, and military and other federal laws restrict the political expression of servicemembers (“SMs”) in the Armed Forces, whether they are active- duty members or National Guard or Reserves serving on active duty.2 These restrictions, while well-intentioned to prevent actual or apparent political partisanship or bias within the military, have the undesired effect of deterring SMs from otherwise healthy political expression.